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Ukraine is investigating over 200 war crimes against the environment and 15 cases of ecocide, the Prosecutor General's Office said on June 29.
"Ukraine is the first state to prosecute environmental war crimes and ecocide on such a scale," said Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin at the meeting of the International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of War.
According to the report, explosives can now be found on roughly 30% of Ukraine's territory, that is 174,000 square kilometers, and over 2.4 million hectares of forests have been damaged.
"We call for increased cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of Russian war crimes against the environment at the international level," Kostin said.
"It is also necessary to make the aggressor pay for the colossal damage caused by these crimes."
The International Working Group, which includes Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, met President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine on June 29 to discuss the environmental consequences of Russia's aggression, namely the destruction of the Kahkova hydroelectric plant.
After Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam on June 6, Ukraine's south has suffered massive floods and a large-scale humanitarian and environmental crisis. This included pollution of water and soil, death of animal and plant life, and drying of the Kakhovka Reservoir.
On June 22, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets said that the disaster has already caused more than $1.5 billion in damage.
Anastasiia Lapatina
(Updated: )
